Second Update (Continued)

"He said he wanted to see how we performed." Miyamoto Daichoku's expression darkened.

"Isn't he deliberately picking a fight with us?" Nita Goichi said.

Everyone present fell silent at that outcome.

"Say, could we have offended him somehow?" someone asked.

"Impossible. It was our first time meeting him. How could we have offended him?" someone immediately refuted.

"But what's with DOLLARS? Why can they enter the dungeon? I don't think their relationship is all that good either," someone else said. "I even saw them meet this morning, and it didn't seem very pleasant."

Everyone began voicing their opinions and analyzing the situation.

The dungeon's rewards could not be passed up. If they skipped this phase, they would go from first-rate players to second-rate players later on.

Besides, they had finally reached Level 20 and unlocked the dungeon with such excitement, then traveled all this way. No one would be willing to slink back and grind ordinary wild monsters.

Yet after the group sat together and discussed it over and over, they still reached no conclusion.

Even if they really had offended him, they could not figure out who had done it or how.

"Could it be that we haven't offered enough benefits?"

Then someone else made a suggestion.

"You mean he's occupying the dungeon just to collect resources?" Kyuutake Itsuki pondered.

He was extremely familiar with this sort of thing. He was a gangster enforcer and had plenty of experience in it.

It was just that today, he had gone from collecting protection money to being the one who had to pay it.

Just thinking about it made him feel unwilling.

But that was reality. If you were weaker than others, you had no choice but to smile and hand over your benefits.

"If he dislikes some of us, then we should compensate him accordingly." Miyamoto Daichoku agreed with that deduction.

"Then hand over every resource you have!" Kyuutake Itsuki said bluntly.

"Why should it come from us?"

The other players were naturally unwilling to hear that.

"Keep talking nonsense and I'll kill you all!" Kyuutake Itsuki sprang to his feet and drew his broadsword.

Miyamoto Daichoku also drew his pistol.

"Everyone, just cooperate. Hand over all your items, then let the committee decide together and choose a gift for Tsukikawa Shu. Otherwise, none of us will get into the dungeon!" Nita Goichi stood up as well.

Money from the outside world naturally could not move him. Only resources from the Inner World mattered.

Under Kyuutake Itsuki and Miyamoto Daichoku's threats, everyone reluctantly dumped every item from their backpacks.

But after carefully examining everyone's belongings, Kyuutake Itsuki and Miyamoto Daichoku's expressions became extremely ugly.

They had thought they could squeeze the others for enough to piece together a gift and pay the protection money first. Yet after forcing everyone to hand over all their possessions, they discovered that compared to Tsukikawa Shu, their group was...

Pathetic. Extremely pathetic!

"That's all you have? What the hell are these things good for?"

Kyuutake Itsuki viciously hurled a Fine Grade dagger onto the ground.

The highest-grade weapons these people had were only Fine Grade, and the same was true for their items and materials.

Would Tsukikawa Shu even care about this stuff? As if!

Then there was hard currency like Refined Ore. For people who treated Fine Grade weapons as treasures, it was naturally impossible for them to dismantle weapons and items.

There were several main sources of Refined Ore: it could drop from rock-type wild monsters, be found in treasure chests, obtained from dungeon runs, or acquired by dismantling weapons.

The latter two were naturally impossible for this group. Their Refined Ore only came from the first two sources, and the amount they could obtain was extremely limited.

The Refined Ore from all eight of them combined did not even reach a thousand pieces. Could that count as a grand gift?!

"How about we add our own weapons too?"

After hesitating for a long time, Miyamoto Daichoku finally made the painful suggestion.

Only Kyuutake Itsuki and Miyamoto Daichoku, the two Level 20 players present, possessed Rare Grade weapons.

"Are you stupid? He already has an Epic Grade weapon. Why would he want our weapons? To dismantle them into Refined Ore?" Kyuutake Itsuki twitched.

Just thinking of giving away the weapon he had worked so hard to obtain, Kyuutake Itsuki's first instinct was that he absolutely could not agree.

Even if the other party wanted it, he could not give it away. A major reason he had managed to survive until Level 20 was because his weapon was high enough in quality to deal with higher-level wild monsters and gain more Experience Points.

Faced with Kyuutake Itsuki's insults, the other players were helpless as well.

If they had good things, would they need to beg so miserably for a chance to run the dungeon?

Everyone fell silent again.

"You can't scrape together a gift with stuff from the Inner World." Kyuutake Itsuki snorted coldly.

"What do you people have that's worth anything?"

He then turned his gaze to the students.

"That's right. Hand over anything valuable your families have, and write it all down!" Nita Goichi said as well.

Everyone could only list the things they could offer in the outside world.

To Kyuutake Itsuki and Miyamoto Daichoku, these Shuchiin Academy students were not employers at all, but wallets they could withdraw money from whenever they wanted. Their earlier obedience had only been because they were still in the outside world.

Once they entered the Inner World, it became the home ground of high-level players like them!

However, resources from the outside world were even less capable of putting together a satisfactory gift.

Some could offer vast sums of money, some could cede power, and some were even hidden big shots in the entertainment industry, controlling quite a few signed actresses under their command.

But the money and power that made people flock to them in the outside world held no appeal whatsoever to Inner World players.

"Right, didn't that guy make a post on the forum called 'Widely Recruiting Virtuous Wives'?"

At that moment, a frail-looking boy suddenly suggested, "Then why don't we... give him a woman?"

The people present fell silent again.

"You actually dare make that suggestion!"

Then the girls present exploded.

"We're not marrying someone like that!"

"Exactly! Who knows how he treats women? Anyone who makes a post like that on the forum is obviously no good person."

"You call yourself a Shuchiin Academy student, yet you dare make such a suggestion!"

"I think you need a beating!"

"No, no, no, I wasn't talking about you."

The frail boy hurriedly explained, "I meant Fujiwara. Send Fujiwara over!"

"Fujiwara... I remember Fujiwara spoke with Tsukikawa Shu before, and they got along pretty well. It's just that Fujiwara never agreed to him..."

"Fujiwara?" Kyuutake Itsuki looked puzzled.

"She's the secretary of our Student Council. Her name is Fujiwara Chika."

Someone else added.

"I remember now. She contacted Tsukikawa Shu before, and the two of them chatted several times."

"That's her. At the very least, Tsukikawa Shu seems to value her quite highly."

"Yes, yes! He even gave her several Experience Cards."

"Tsukikawa Shu definitely likes her, but she refused him."

"If we send her over, Tsukikawa Shu should be willing to go easy on us."

Everyone chattered away, recounting what they knew.

"Oh, that young lady? She's indeed not bad." Kyuutake Itsuki nodded.

"But... isn't that too unfair to Fujiwara?" someone timidly objected.

But the moment those words were spoken, everyone immediately turned on them.

"Do you want to die? If we don't do this, how are we supposed to develop?!"

"You're not the one being sent away, so why are you talking so much?"

"Do you pity her that much? Then go with her."

"This is for the good of the group. Fujiwara never hired bodyguards and has been freeloading off the protection of us bodyguard players. It's time for her to contribute!"

"If anyone is to blame, it's her for not agreeing to him sooner! Now we have to make the decision for her."

Under the attacks of so many people, the student who had objected immediately wilted and dared not speak again.

At the same time, everyone realized that Fujiwara Chika truly was the best candidate!

The whole committee was being held back by Tsukikawa Shu. They could not clear the dungeon, and their strength had completely stagnated. In this cruel world, that was a catastrophic disaster for everyone.

If they did not resolve it quickly, their levels, equipment, and resources would be left far behind by others, and they would become prey.

But what if they only chose one person to sacrifice?

Sacrifice one to benefit everyone, and the person being sacrificed was not themselves. Wasn't that the best bargain in the world?

Moreover, considering each person's contribution to the group, Fujiwara Chika was undoubtedly the best choice.

Although she was the Student Council secretary at school, she was utterly useless in the Inner World!

A helpless young lady who could not do physical labor and wasted precious food every day.

Even more disgracefully, she had not even hired bodyguards, freeloading off everyone else's protection all this time!

Throwing such baggage directly to that Great Demon Lord as his wife and letting her fend for herself would not only earn Tsukikawa Shu's mercy, but also get rid of a burden.

Killing two birds with one stone!

"Since everyone agrees, then it's decided." Nita Goichi smiled.

"Go call her over."

At that moment, Fujiwara Chika was lying on a sofa, boredly plucking petals from a little wildflower one by one as she thought deeply.

She was very troubled right now.

"How am I supposed to explain this to my family? This is so annoying!"

Fujiwara Chika had no experience with this sort of thing whatsoever.

She had grown up under excessive protection. Her family had even forbidden her from engaging with vulgar entertainment like video games.

That had led her, while searching for loopholes in the family rules, to develop peculiar interests. For example, subcultures outside the mainstream of otaku culture, such as German-style analog games and puzzle games, were exactly her thing.

She needed to be even more cautious when it came to marriage, and Fujiwara Chika had no idea how her family would view this matter.

Could the relatives who adored her so much accept Tsukikawa Shu, who already had two partners and might have even more in the future?

Tsukikawa Shu was a very forceful person. He was powerful and free-spirited by nature, so there was no way he would follow the rules of those great families.

Nor could he possibly submit to a great family's arrangements and serve it.

Under such circumstances, many conflicts and contradictions would arise.